


A New Way to Live

by ralex002



Category: Trigun
Genre: F/M, Other, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2020-05-19 22:08:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19364863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ralex002/pseuds/ralex002
Summary: Millions Knives finds a new cause to live for when he meets a journalist living with Vash, Meryl and Milly. Based on the Trigun Manga, not the anime.





	1. Alive Again

**Author's Note:**

> I also published this on my Wattpad account. My Wattpad username is ralex002. I just published chapter three, and I'm excited to keep writing this fic centered around Millions Knives and a female OC. I've only read two fanfics that are about Knives meeting a female OC, and I think the Internet needs more. So here is the beginning of mine.

Darkness with flickers of light poked through the darkness. Fragments of noises and lights flickered in and out of Knives' consciousness. He concentrated on the noises harder, but they seemed distant. He wasn’t sure if they were really that far away, or if it was a result of his mind being hazy.

Knives shifted his attention to his body, scanning it. It felt like it was floating through a tunnel, but he couldn’t be sure. As he focused his attention harder, he noticed his torso felt like it was slung over a shoulder. 

Knives' ears picked up a familiar male voice, but it was hazy. His vision was still dark, picking up just those fragments of light again.  
He was nervous. If memory served him correctly, Knives recalled being at a cottage with a man, a boy, and ... Vash!

That's who the voice belonged to.

The image of an apple tree popped into his thoughts.

That's right! Knives grew a tree to sustain the boy and his father. What happened next?

He remembered saying something to the boy. What did he say? He couldn’t remember much except for that fact that his vision became blurry and thoughts were fuzzy as the boy ran into the house calling for help. Knives recalled his consciousness fading out and the wind taking him away. He thought that he died the way all plants die when they reach the end of their lifespans by disintegrating into a fine dust. 

But if that were the case, why was he being carried by Vash?

His vision became clearer as Vash placed him into a vehicle as gently as possible. Vash had hauled him onto a rickety cart. A wave of nausea came over Knives as he felt the motion of his body changing positions. His head moved, and the nausea became worse.

Suddenly he wretched.

Thanks to Vash, Knives wasn't choking on his own stomach contents.

"Easy there," Vash held Knives over the edge of the cart.

"Hnng," Knives groaned as he dry heaved the last of the nausea out of his system.

"Don't try talking," Vash said.

Knives couldn't make out the tone in Vash's voice. Was he being compassionate? Why after all Knives had done to humanity? After all that he attempted, Vash was treating him with compassion.

Was Vash taking him to stand trial for what he had done?

He tried prying into Vash's mind with his telepathic powers but was violently slammed out by a powerful force that sent him reeling with more nausea.

"I wouldn't try that if I were you. Not after everything you pulled, Knives," echoed a stern warning in Knives' mind.

“Maybe you should get some sleep!” Vash chimed cheerfully. 

Well, that was a huge difference from the voice that was just speaking to Knives telepathically.

Before he could think more about what happened, Knives felt a lull in his mind as though he were being sung to sleep. The irresistible pull of sleep was delicious.

No worries. No pain. Just sleep.

 

A hand nudged Knives' shoulder to stir him from his sleep. As he came to, he wondered how long he had been asleep. When he opened his eyes, Vash was staring down at him with a concerned expression on his face.

"Good. You're awake. You were making sounds in your sleep that were probably caused by dreams," Vash said. “Just wanted to make sure you weren’t dying again.”

Knives was still groggy, so he couldn't think quickly enough to respond to his brother's comment about his death. All he knew was that the comment irritated him. A lot irritated him, no thanks to unresolved traumas in his life. His mind went to the stress he experienced when he saw Tessla's remains, how long he'd been unconscious for afterwards while Rem tried to win her place back into Vash's heart. Now he was in his brother's care in a helpless state. Fear gripped his mind that if he were turned into the authorities, they would sentence him to being dissected in the name of science ...

His thoughts trailed off to all the worse-case-scenarios until Knives was in a state of panic. He became only vaguely aware of a pair of hands hauling him into a sitting position while his mind was floating elsewhere. Then he heard a voice saying his name.

"Knives."

Who was that?

"Knives, you need to stand up now. We're here," it said.

"Where?" Knives struggled to form thoughts and words. His mind was separated from his body seeing himself from outside. But a shake brought him back into himself.

"Knives!"

Knives gasped as his mind slammed back into his body. He looked over at Vash who had called his name. Vash was standing on the side of the wagon, hand outstretched on his sibling's shoulder, and an even deeper look of worry on his face. He shook the brain fog from his mind and sharply withdrew his shoulder from his brother's grip. 

"Where the hell have you taken me?" Knives said in a low, but irritated voice.

"Home," Vash responded. "You're home now with me and some friends."

The murderous twin released a caustic laugh.

"Friends? You mean those two humans?" Knives spat the word human as though he had to get rid of a bad taste in his mouth. 

Now he wasn’t so sure he felt as strongly about humans as he had before. His thoughts were all over the place and needed to be sorted through. At the moment, he just wanted to sleep. 

Vash placed another annoying hand on Knives' shoulder.

"They're not all that bad," Vash said comfortingly. "I won't waste my words on you now. You'll just have to see for yourself that nothing is as black and white as you’ve believed all your life."

Knives clenched his jaw but willed himself to stand to get out of the cart and allowed Vash to show him into his home. His entire body felt clenched up with anxiety from having to face the consequences of his actions.

What if Vash's human friends ostracized Knives before giving him a chance to prove himself worthy of their respect? He supposed he deserved as much, if not worse, for murdering thousands of loved ones and almost destroying the entire world. 

Lost in his train of thought, Knives was only aware of Vash's hand on his shoulder leading him up the steps, unlocking the door, turning the knob and calling out to Meryl and Milly. 

"Yo! Insurance girls, I'm home and have company with me!" Vash called cheerfully as though he hadn't just brought a genocidal racist into his home.

Well, formerly genocidal. Knives figured he had lost the will to kill humans when Vash defeated him. He tried to redeem himself in one final attempt by growing a tree for the boy and his father.

His bigotry, however, was slowly giving way to something more open, but he wasn't sure. Knives wanted to test his responses to humans in interactions with them. In order to overcome his preconceived notions of humanity, Knives hoped for a chance to expose himself to more situations where he could observe and speak with human beings.

Baby steps. 

An annoyed female voice broke his train of thought.

"I told you to stop calling us 'insurance girls’," a short, dark-haired woman spoke up. "We're reporters with No Man's Land Broadcasting, and calling grown women 'girls' can be downright insulting."

Vash rubbed the back of his head. "Ehehe. Sorry. I'm getting used to these things."

There was an awkward silence as Milly, Meryl, and Vash stood looking at each other. Vash was standing looking kind of goofy with his hand still behind his head. Meryl's facial expression fell a bit flat with her mouth a thin line. Milly just looked obliviously cheerful.

"Uh ... So this is Knives. Knives, meet Milly and Meryl," he motioned to the two women. “Say hello to each other!” 

Vash looked around, as though someone was missing.

"But where's Jamilla?"

"Oh, she's out on assignment surveying and reporting on damage in a town nearby!" Milly chimed in. "She should be back here tonight."

Knives perked up at the mention of this absent woman. 

"Oh, Jamilla is another No Man's Land reporter living here to split rent with us," Vash responded, because he probably read Knives' question from his thoughts. 

"I see," was Knives' response.

Another awkward silence filled the room. 

"So ... Are you hungry, Knives? Would you like a bath?" Vash asked.

The other rubbed his eyes, shaking his head in annoyance. Why didn’t his brother understand the need to be alone?

"I just want to sleep, Vash," Knives gritted through his teeth.

'As a matter of fact, I just want to die again.' 

Knives was exhausted and didn't exactly have the will to live at the moment. He wanted to be alone and process stuff. 

"Well, I'll take you to the spare bedroom," the spikey-haired brother mellowly responded.

The tone in Knives' voice deflated Vash’s buoyant mood.

'Good. Let him be sad and suffer.' 

Wasn’t that what Knives wanted for so many years? Hiring the Gung-Ho Guns and Legato to do his dirty work seemed like a foolproof plan all those years ago. 

Vash gave Knives a cursory tour of the facilities such as the kitchen and the bathroom. When he made it to the spare bedroom, he made sure Knives didn’t need anything else.

“Let me know if you’re hungry, so I can make you something to eat,” Vash said. 

When Knives didn’t respond at first, Vash turned to leave, feeling disappointed that his brother wasn’t responding. 

And then he heard Knives mumble, “Vash … I … I’m sorry.” 

Without turning to face his twin, he responded, “You’ll need to show us that with more than just words.”

A tense silence filled the room before Knives answered.

“I know.” 

Always the more emotive brother, Vash’s expression transitioned from stern to cheerful when he said spoke his final words to his twin for the day. 

“Sleep well, Knives. You’ll need to be rested because I’m taking you to get some essentials when you wake up.”

Knives clenched his jaw, feeling suddenly irritated and anxious about the implication that he would have to go shopping with his annoying twin. He didn’t want to be walking about with all those humans smashed up against him the marketplace. His shoulders tensed up at the idea. 

Willing himself to go to sleep, he slipped under the bed covers and closed his eyes.


	2. A Cucumber for the Landlady, Jamilla Meets Knives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamilla arrives home to find out Vash brought a new roommate in while she was away on business.

Her head bumping the window woke her up. Drool stuck to her sweaty, freckled cheek. Strands of curly auburn hair clung uncomfortably to her chin. Jamilla hated traveling by bus. The AC was broken, and the sun beating down on her through the window didn’t help any. The three-hour trip back to Octovern was crowded and uncomfortable for Jamilla who was squashed against the window next to an old sleeping man. Her ass and legs ached from sitting for so long. 

No Man’s Land Broadcasting assigned her to documenting and writing articles on the damage done by the Ark. While she loved the work, she was also exhausted from meeting with so many different people for interviews. She hadn’t gotten much time to herself, so coming home would allow her to recharge. 

Jamilla had gathered some very sad stories from locals and government officials concerning the post-Arc aftermath. She was haunted by the violence and carnage she saw and the stories she heard. Sleeping pills became her best friends while she was on assignment. They’ll probably be needed for some time after this, as well. 

A psychiatrist in Octovern reluctantly prescribed her a few sleeping pills, as well as some antidepressants for her panic attacks and depression. No one thought that a reporter’s job was like war, but you didn’t have to fight a war to be effected by one.  
Nightmares plagued her most nights unless she took her medication properly. Many of her coworkers think they’re being helpful when they tell her not to take medication for her mental health, and then they go and drink themselves into oblivion every night. 

Which was better? Jamilla thought one has to pick their poison. It’s not as though she were addicted. She could safely wean off the pills. She just had to learn better coping strategies down the line when she had time.

“Baby steps,” she reminded herself.

Jamilla snuggled as close to the window by her seat as possible and allowed the motion of the bus to lull her. She pulled her newspaper over her head for some privacy and shade from the oppressive sun.

Her bag was between her feet on the floor. When she nudged it, she felt excited about all the documentation she took down in her notebook and on tapes. It felt good knowing that she had gotten so much done. 

Jamilla dozed off, but it seemed almost as soon as she closed her eyes, the bus driver had announced that they were entering Octovern station. Once the driver pulled into the station, a man came stumbling out of the bathroom, shoving the door wide open and forcing a cloud of fecal odor down everyone’s throats. 

“Fuck! Close that door!” Some guy behind Jamilla yelled

“Fuck off!” the perpetrator shot back.

The other passenger bent over and smacked his butt.

“Suck my ass! You don’t just light up a bathroom like that and leave the door open!” 

A whole commotion followed with several people yelling and swearing at the poor bastard who left a mess in the bathroom. 

‘Shit,’ Jamilla thought. ‘The poor guy has the runs and he’s stuck on a bus. There’s no need for all this yelling.’

“The hell is going on back there?” The bus driver had pulled the bus into the station and was walking back to confront the offenders.

Jamilla grabbed her bag and ducked out of the bus to avoid being caught in the confrontation. All the while, she was stifling laughter.  
It was five in the morning, and the reporter wanted to get home so she could sleep. When she was tired, she always found the most juvenile things to be funny. One of those things happened to be grown men yelling about poop.

She walked into town from the bus station thinking about how good it will feel to sleep in her own bed. Walking past the shops, she saw that only a few people were out and about probably coming home from late night shifts. 

The home she shared with Vash, Milly, and Meryl came into view. As Jamilla neared her home, she saw a tall, black-haired figure leaving the landlady’s yard. 

‘That’s weird. Why is Vash coming from the landlady’s yard?’

As she got closer, she saw the landlady at the window of their house tapping it with a cucumber.

This was getting weirder. Jamilla wondered if she was hallucinating from lack of sleep. Jamilla approached the landlady slowly as she got her keys out to unlock the door. 

“Are you trying to give us a cucumber again?” Jamilla asked the landlady.

She shook her head. “No! But some man who looked like Vash but wasn’t Vash came into my garden and grew cucumbers! Full-grown cucumbers!” 

Jamilla almost started laughing at the absurdity of that description. 

“Huh? A man who looked like Vash but wasn’t Vash? Can you describe him? No one like that lives here.” 

“Oh, yeah he does!” The landlady pointed toward her garden. “He just left in a hurry when I saw him. He had spiky black hair, but it was shorter, and his mole was on the opposite side of his face than Vash’s!” 

Jamilla’s face scrunched up in confusion and worry. Who else had moved in while she was away on business? Why hadn’t anyone contacted her that someone was moving in? This was stress she didn’t need right now at five in the fucking morning. 

Jamilla and the landlady turned toward the window when they heard it sliding open. They were met with Milly cheerfully waving to them both.

“Welcome home, Jamilla!” Milly yelled.

“All you’re going to say is ‘welcome home’ without even explaining why there’s a man that looks like Vash but isn’t Vash living with us?”

The tall brunette rubbed the back of her head, laughing nervously. 

“What a funny way to describe Mr. Knives!” Milly pointed out.

“Who is Knives and why is he growing cucumbers in the landlady’s garden?” Jamilla cut her off.

“What?!” Milly shouted. “He’s growing cucumbers for the landlady? That’s so nice of him!”

Jamilla frustratedly groaned at the ditzy brunette. 

“Why didn’t anybody call me with a heads-up that we were getting a new roommate while I was away?” she asked.

Milly looked down, a frown forming on her face and fingertips touching each other. 

“Gosh, I’m sorry, Jamilla. It all happened so quickly,” Milly apologized. “I think it’s best if Vash explained everything to you.” 

Jamilla sighed exhaustedly. “I would appreciate that.” 

How could she get upset? Vash must have a reasonable explanation. He seemed like a goof, but he’s a pretty solid guy, Jamilla reasoned.  
The reporter entered the house, almost tripping on the small step in her fatigue-clouded mind. She rubbed her eyes, which felt dry and tired. The sooner Vash explained everything to her, the better so Jamilla could get to sleep. 

Jamilla and Milly walked through the living room to see Vash and the new man, Knives sitting across from each other, eyes intense as though in a staring contest with each other. Whatever was going on must’ve been some telepathic communication, that much Jamilla knew.  
Even though at the beginning of their friendship Vash had tried to keep his origins and true identity from her, she figured it out based on information being circulated during the war with the Arc. His origins had been leaked to the public, and Jamilla worked on verifying the facts. 

She knew his origins and that his twin brother was the mastermind behind the devastating events over many, many years.  
If her guesses were correct, she would say that this Knives is Vash’s brother, but she would let her roommate explain everything himself.  
She observed Knives a bit more closely and noticed differences immediately. His facial expression was more reserved and aloof, a stark contrast to Vash who wore his heart on his sleeve. 

“Hey,” Vash held up his hand in greeting to Jamilla and motioned for her to sit. 

Jamilla took a seat in the chair next to Vash on the couch. 

“You can imagine how startled I was when I came home to see the landlady banging on the window with a cucumber and a man that looked like you but wasn’t you leaving her yard,” Jamilla began. 

“Yeah, let me explain,” Vash said. 

“I thought the lack of sleep made me hallucinate,” Jamilla continued as though Vash hadn’t said anything. “How did your brother become our newest roomie?”

“Are you gonna let me talk?” The plant whined. 

Jamilla paused in her rambling. “Sorry. Go ahead.”

“This is Knives. In short, I answered a telepathic call from a plant with a weak presence,” Vash gestured toward Knives. “I didn’t know it was him, but I knew whatever it was, was in need of help.” 

He paused to gather his thoughts and to allow Jamilla to process what he told her. 

“So I traveled to the ruins of the Arc and found Knives’ weak body restored,” Vash continued. “I told you the whole story before about how I survived the battle of the Arc, and Knives supposedly died after growing that tree.”

Knives was silent, but he cast a resentful stare at his brother for exposing his weakness to this stranger. 

Jamilla cut in, “So he regenerated somehow.” 

“Yes, but we don’t know how,” Vash responded. “Please understand that I had nowhere else to bring him. He’s a wanted criminal, and I don’t want to put him in the hands of the authorities.”

Another silence filled the room as Jamilla thought about that. It’s not like she was worried about the guy hurting them. She could get over what he had done, but she spoke to a lot of people whose lives were destroyed. People who would never see loved ones again. There was definitely a moral issue with this.

The woman looked at Knives. He looked tired, sad and angry. 

What most fascinated her was how he powered the Arc with his own body and then came back to life after he died. 

“All right,” she said. “Thanks for filling me in. Knives welcome to what’s becoming the house of wayward plants.” 

Knives turned to look at her, but she couldn’t quite make out his expression. Was he angry or curious? She decided to figure it out later because it was bedtime for her.

‘Not the talkative type, I see. Suits me just fine,’ she thought.

“Well, off to bed with me. I got hardly any sleep while I was away,” Jamilla stood up and excused herself.

Vash nodded with a small, humble smile. He was thankful for her understanding. Jamilla understood a lot. Or at least she was pretty tolerant of a lot. When she got to her bedroom, she closed the door, changed her clothes to drawstring pajama bottoms and a t-shirt, and fell asleep. 

No sleeping pill needed this time.


	3. For Immediate Release

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamilla and Knives become more acquainted with each other in the afternoon. Jamilla also gets a major lead on a story that interests Knives.

Knives went back to his room to rest so he could recover his strength, Growing cucumbers drained him more than it would have pre-Arc catastrophe.

The landlady must've been up using the bathroom or something that early in the morning. Didn't humans like to sleep late? Don't elderly people like her retire?

It didn't matter anymore. What's done is done.

Sitting on the edge of his bed facing the window side of the room, Knives reflected on his motives for growing the cucumbers in the first place.

I wanted to see if I would die again. I should have died. Why didn't I? I disintegrated into dust when I planted the apple tree for the old man and his boy. What made this time different?

He was impulsive and exhausted to boot. The two qualities never mixed well with the humanoid.

There were so many questions Knives needed answered.

Why had he come back to life? Having completely darkened hair meant he was at the end of his lifespan as a plant.

Something happened somewhere, and he was too tired to develop theories.

There was so much he and Vash didn't know about their species' existence. Knives thought he knew it all when he was younger. Yet all the recent events proved that he knew nothing.

Moving to his bed, he stretched out on his back, rubbed the exhaustion from his eyes, and covered up with a blanket. He felt dead enough from using his energy to grow another plant, so he wanted to sleep. Images of people and places throughout his life passed in the darkness behind his closed eyelids as he drifted off to sleep.

Standing in the kitchen holding a glass of water, Knives stared at the Vash, Meryl, and Milly at the table. They were huddled together in concentration over a game of cards. Knives looked toward the living room where there was nothing but darkness.

"Why aren't the lights on?" He asked, but no one at the table responded to his question.

Suddenly, he felt a feeling of dread and something dangerous lurking in the shadows of the dark house. The kitchen was lit, but the three companions at the table were ignoring him.

He hesitated but approached the table in spite of the dread.

"What the hell is going on?" Knives asked again.

His feet wouldn't carry him faster than a snail's pace.

Walking as though he were wading through thick mud, Knives persisted on his way to Vash and roommates. What was so engrossing about the game of cards that they ignored him and the dangerous feeling permeating the air?

Was the danger there for him only?

"Don't you all notice that presence?" Knives asked as he finally reached the table and grabbed Vash's shoulder.

He backed up when he saw the scene on the table.

The cards in everyone's hands transformed into surgical tools, while the cards in the middle of the table became a dissected body.

Knives pulled back in horror as he viewed the body. It was Tessla as he remembered her from that nightmarish day in his childhood that changed his and Vash's lives forever.

His voice faltered with the urge to cry.

"What are you doing? Vash, you have to save her. Save Tessla from these humans!" Knives pleaded with Vash.

As he tried to step backward, mysterious hands grabbed him on the biceps. He looked around and saw masked people in lab attire all prepared to cut him open. They pushed Knives toward the kitchen table, which transformed into an operating table.

He fought them, pled with Vash to save him. His head flailed and legs kicked.

His screams were muffled by a ball of invisible cotton in his throat.

Knives caught a figure in the corner of his eye. He turned his head to see the person standing in the entryway of the kitchen. There stood Jamilla looking terrified, but she didn't move.

"You! Please save me!" Knives screamed at Jamilla.

Jamilla looked on. Her mouth was cast down in an open frown and eyes creased in worry. She seemed to step forward but then hesitated and stepped back.

Knives thrashed and screamed, but nothing came from his mouth. Rough hands thrust him on the table right on top of Tessla's gory remains.

"Ah!" Knives woke up suddenly as his screams carried from his dream to reality.

Panting to catch his breath, the horror still fresh in his mind and body, he looked around the room. The sun was coming out, and he could see the ceiling. Everything around him was real, no one was trying to dissect him, and Tessla was long gone.

Knives slowly rolled over on his side and steadily sat up on the edge of the bed. He needed a drink of water. But what if the government was waiting for him in the kitchen?

No. This is reality. This is real. Real life.

Knives had to reassure himself that this was all real. He wasn't about to face some monsters downstairs.

Planting his feet on the floor, he stood up steadily and walked to the bedroom door. Opening the door with his ear pressed against it, he listened for voices.

Certain that no one was downstairs, Knives made his way to the kitchen.

On his way to the kitchen, he tried to notice the feeling of the ground under his feet.

It was a real floor.

He felt the wood of the staircase railing. The texture was smooth and finished and felt cool under his fingers.

'It's real. Just remember this is real because that's what's going to keep me together,' Knives reminded himself.

Maybe it should be his mantra to repeat to ground himself. If these dreams and panic attacks were going to happen again, he needed to find a way to recenter his mental state.

Since when had he kept a mantra? Maybe his philosophy all those years on his quest to destroy humans was a mantra of sorts.

It kept him going when he felt at his lowest. The idea that Knives would forge a better world for himself and his siblings kept him going.

Coming back to the present moment, Knives noticed that the living room was empty. No one occupied the corduroy chairs and couch.

A newspaper lay open on the coffee table. Knives walked over to pick it up. He was curious about the article that the previous person had been reading.

He eyed the headline.

THE ARC LEAVES MANY WITHOUT HOMES, DEAD

Knives bit his lower lip and felt a wave of shame and disgust rip through his stomach. He hated himself, yet he was still struggling with his prejudice against humans.

He eyed the byline of the article: By Jamilla O'Higgins

So the little reporter who lived here wrote this. She wrote this quickly for having gotten back from the assignment at five in the morning.

Knives wondered what her job was like. He couldn't help the curiosity towards his roommate. How did she get into working for the news station? How have his actions impacted her life?

Knives felt like asking her these questions, but his pride wouldn't allow him to just approach a person right now.

He also didn't feel deserving of anyone's attention after the disaster with the Arc. If anyone had explaining to do, it was Knives.

Knives tensed when he heard someone coming out of another bedroom.

He hoped it wasn't Vash or some other bubbly personality he lived with. Meryl wasn't that talkative in the morning, but Milly was too loud to deal with.

What if it was Jamilla? What was she like in the morning?

Knives looked at the clock on the wall. It read noon. It was actually the afternoon, but it always felt like the morning when one was just waking up.

Knives certainly didn't like interacting with anyone upon waking up.

A figure came into view from his peripheral vision. Jamilla walked slowly to the kitchen without even paying Knives any mind.

Knives hesitated before following her discreetly. He observed her taking out the coffee grounds, scooping them into a filter in the coffee pot and turning the pot on.

It gurgled as the water heated up.

Knives walked further into the kitchen toward the cabinet to get a mug ready for coffee. Jamilla moved at the same time, bumping her elbow to his elbow.

"Excuse me," Knives murmured.

Jamilla let out a breath before responding.

"'Scuse me," Jamilla almost whispered.

A silence filled the air before Knives responded.

"It's ok," He responded to her.

He observed her more closely as she stood there. Her short, bobbed hair was messed up around her eyes, and he noticed an undercut buzzed beneath her bob. A small braid poked out from behind her ear.

'Looks like she went right to bed after our introduction,' Knives noted to himself.

Both Jamilla and Knives stood at the counter watching the coffee pot.

Neither made eye contact with each other.

Jamilla kept her hand over the top rim of her mug and absently twirled it around on the counter. 

Knives watched the coffee drip into the pot as he did something similar with his mug.

They were both jerked out of their thoughts at the sound of the coffee pot releasing its final sputter to indicate it finished brewing.

Without waiting any longer, the small reported pulled the pot from its place and poured her coffee into the mug. She put the pot back and went to the fridge for coffee creamer which she stirred into her coffee with a spoon she pulled from the drawer.

Leaving the creamer and spoon on the counter, Jamilla took off to the living room to drink her hot beverage in privacy.

'Jamilla must not be a morning person,' Knives noted.

That worked well for him.

He poured his own cup of coffee and prepared it with creamer as his quiet roommate did with hers.

\------Jamilla------

Well, she didn't expect to encounter him first thing in the morning ... Well, afternoon for those who want to be precise. She went to sleep at five and needed adequate rest to function.

She expected a house of four people would have someone up, but for some reason, Jamilla didn't expect only Knives to be around.

The moment in the kitchen was weird for her, and she didn't like the way he weirdly stared at her.

Jamilla tried to remember that Vash was also an awkward person, so Knives was probably just as bad, if not worse.

What did she expect from a person who tried to destroy the whole human race?

Even more importantly, why wasn't she bothered by his presence at all?

Maybe it's because she hadn't lost anyone to the violence.

Well, anyway, Meryl and Milly were probably at work.

Wherever Vash was Jamilla couldn't care less.

Her roommates could do whatever they wanted, although the three of them did have a tendency to be nosy about each other's business. When Jamilla moved in, she made it clear she wouldn't have anyone asking her where she'd been every time she came home.

The way she saw things if she paid her rent that should be enough. No one needed to get up in her business.

Her thoughts wandered to Knives. He's the quiet, reserved type, which was the refreshing opposite of her housemates who always wanted to make some friendly small talk. Most of the time, Jamilla enjoyed their banter, but she had a tendency to get into moods where she was anxious or depressed and needed to be alone.

While she loved her job, one downside was that the reported was easily drained by socializing and needed regular breaks from it.

Jamilla sipped her coffee and savored its rich flavor.

As the stimulant perked her up, an idea entered her head. She wanted to do an article about humanoid plants, but Vash already turned down an interview. While she was doubtful that Knives would agree, the reporter figured it wouldn't kill her to ask him for an interview for an article.

She turned around slightly to see that Knives was sitting on the couch in the living room a few feet away.

Clearing her throat, Jamilla swallowed her nerves to ask.

"Er, Knives ... Do you mind if I interviewed you for an article about humanoid plants?" Jamilla asked.

Knives' head slowly raised off his knuckles and hesitantly turned towards Jamilla.

"What?" was his confused and irritated response.

Jamilla licked her bottom lip before continuing.

"Ah ... Well, my beat for the No Man's Land Broadcasting involves plants and anything related," she explained.

Knives gave her an unimpressed look to tell her to hurry up with her explanation.

"I really want to be the first to interview a humanoid plant. I want to educate the public about those such as you and Vash," Jamilla finished.

Silence kept Jamilla on the edge. What was he waiting for?

Knives closed his eyes in irritation and turned his head away.

"I decline this interview," was his curt response.

"Er ... Ok. Well, thanks, anyway," Jamilla turned back to the computer screen.

'Now I feel silly,' she thought.

Jamilla decided to check her email to take her mind off of her awkwardness.

Nothing of interest showed up in her messages. At least, nothing until an alert popped up at the bottom of her screen.

She clicked the box and opened the urgent message with a subject line, "Newborn Plant" on it.

That caught her attention.

Jamilla carefully read it, and as she progressed through the press release, her heart raced.

The email read:

For immediate release.

Head plant engineer, Tom Hicks, found a newborn humanoid plant in the wreckage of the recently crashed Arc last night at 8 p.m.

The infant was confirmed alive with minor injuries to itself, however, the mother was recently deceased. Hicks believes she died soon after giving birth to the baby plant.

"She breathed her last breath as we found the infant in the bulb," Hicks said. "The baby is female, and we have chosen to name her Tessla."

The name was chosen in honor of an earlier female humanoid plant that was born over 170 years ago on the sleeper ship known as Project S.E.E.D.S.

For press inquiries, please call Monica Reeves at 756-656-1100 or email at mreeves.

"Oh, fuck," Jamilla accidentally whispered a little too loudly.

Knives turned his head partially around to see what was going on.

=====Knives=====

Knives was drawn out of his irritated revery by Jamilla's swearing. Had something happened?

"What now?" He asked.

He reflexively turned around to ask her what she was on about, but Jamilla was grabbing her pen, notebook, and bag and running out before he had a chance.

She shook her head at him as though to say, "Not right now."

Yet, in her frantic state of mind, Knives caught words and images of something she read in her email.

One image fragment stood out to him the most: Newborn plant found ... Tessla.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Knives and Vash stalk Jamilla to the news station so they can eavesdrop on her conversation with the plant engineer.

Jamilla slammed the door as she ran out of the house, leaving Knives’ brain roiling with thoughts and emotions at the bits of information he gathered from the reporter’s mind. He sat in silence, steaming coffee in hand, pondering what to do. 

Going after the woman would be rash, and Knives was trying not to act as impulsively as he used to. If he told his Vash, his brother may sympathize and consider questioning Jamilla when she arrived back home later. What if she didn’t come right back home, and instead went on an assignment instead? Perhaps the best idea was to secretly go back to the Arc ruins himself regardless of what his twin thought. Knives turned around and saw the computer was still on with the web browser open to the email. Jamilla was in such a rush that she forgot to shut down the computer, allowing him to look at it. It wouldn’t hurt just to peek at the email. 

‘Just a little look won’t bother anyone,’ the devious plant reasoned. 

Without further hesitation, Knives moved silently to the computer desk. Sitting himself in the chair, which was adjusted quite low for its previous occupant, his eyes scanned the email on the monitor. As he read the press release, Knives’ heart grew heavier with each word. If this is what it sounded like, there was a possibility the plant engineers had to hand over the newborn baby to the authorities. 

An independent plant had never been born on this planet. Knives knew of two sisters, Chronica and Domina, whom he faced off with briefly during his disastrous Arc mission, who were born and raised in space. Other than the sisters, him and Vash, and the tragic Tessla, no other mobile plants had been born. A phenomenon such as this new infant plant was in danger in the hands of humanity.

He needed to find out where they took the new Tessla to, so he could get her back. It didn’t matter if Vash would agree to a rescue mission or not. 

Running his hand stressfully through his hair, Knives sighed while he hatched some form of a plan. 

‘I can’t tell Vash what I’m doing,’ Knives thought. ‘If I told him about this, he may argue all that pacifist garbage with me.’

He decided the best plan was to follow Jamilla and eavesdrop on her outside the No Man’s Land Broadcasting Station. Then, he would wait for her to leave and follow her to her destination. It sounded creepy, but Knives didn’t know what else to do without approaching her directly.

As he stood up and reached for boots to pull on his feet, someone came down the stairs.

“You weren’t thinking of leaving without me, were you?” The twin reached the end of the staircase. “How did you expect to find the place? You haven’t been to town yet.”

Knives ground his teeth in irritation. 

“How do you think I managed all these years?” he responded to his annoyingly cheerful brother. “Get outta my business, Vash. What? You want to tell me humans won’t murder a child plant again?”

Vash’s smile lessened, but he stood resolute as he approached his angry brother. 

“Actually, I’d like to join you,” he said. “Make sure you don’t freak out Jamilla. You tend to give off stalker vibes towards the opposite sex.”

A tense pause hung between the brothers as they stared each other down; Knives fought back the urge to throw his brother against the wall. Instead, he broke the silence.

“This coming from you, a legendary womanizer,” he crossed his arms and turned his head away haughtily. “Our friend seems a little intrigued with me if I’m being honest.”

Vash raised his eyebrows. 

“Oh?” he said. “Have you become acquainted with each other? You could use a real friend after living a lonely, sad life as my stalker for so many years.”

At this point, Knives’ face was red anger even though he still refused to face his brother at the moment. What did his stupid brother know about what he went through for him? He worked hard to bring him over only to see his own plans for his siblings fail. What does this “needle noggin”, as Wolfwood called him, know about the pain he suffered after being blown apart in July City? Did his brother know how his servants held his organs in their hands while attempting to stuff them back inside Knives’ torso like a shredded teddy bear? 

His memories were interrupted by Vash taking his arm and pulling him out the door.

“Let’s go on a rescue mission!” The spikier-haired one hopped out the door. 

“Let go of me, Vash!” Knives struggled out of his brother’s grip.

Vash laughed and led his brother out the door. Knives’ shoulders tensed up as they entered the busy world of humans in town. The market crawled with adults and children ogling wares in the vendor stalls and day drinkers stumbling out of saloons. He thought about how humans took what they wanted with little restraint, and markets always proved Knives was right about that. People spent money carelessly with little regard for where the goods came from.

“It’s disgusting, Vash,” Knives said as he pointed to people picking out fruits and vegetables in a stall. “They don’t even live in harmony with the plants, yet people still take from them with no regard.

His brother shook his head in disagreement, and he explained in a patient voice why Knives was wrong.

“Actually, plants and humanity are learning to coexist,” Vash explained. “When the Arc crashed, the plants communicated this wish to live in harmony with the humans.”

Knives stopped in his tracks, his face contorted in shock of what Vash just told him. 

“What are you saying?” Knives asked. “That the plants can communicate that way with humans? I couldn’t even make sense of most of what our sisters told me in my head. There was always some kind of mental block.”

Vash stopped to meet his brother where he stood and faced him slowly, his expression serious and serene as a teacher imparts some wisdom to a pupil.

“Perhaps you weren’t listening with empathy,” he said. “You were listening to your own needs and not theirs.”  
Vash paused before continuing.

“Our sisters cried because they suffered, but you couldn’t interpret their suffering because you lacked perspective.”

How could this be that he was so blinded by his own desires that he absorbed his siblings for nothing? Could this be true what Vash told him? If so, there was so much work to do to even make up for the loss of life he caused. How could he have been so wrong all these years of his life?

Knives’ chest was tight, his breathing diminished. This was his punishment, and he was dying again for his crimes. His breaths were ragged as he wheezed, his legs weakened, and his vision was going dark. 

Vash reached out for him and held him by the shoulders. Vash held his gaze steadily and repeated some words. What were the words?

“Knives, hold my gaze and focus on your breathing,” Vash said in a calm voice.

‘But I’m dying!’ Knives screamed in his mind. 

‘You’re not dying,’ his brother’s voice spoke in his thoughts. ‘Breath in as deeply as you can. Hold it, and then release the breath. Repeat this until your thoughts are clear.”

Struggling, he took a deep breath, but it wasn’t deep. It was as deep as he could go. He held it for a few seconds before releasing. Again, he breathed a bit deeper and a little easier, held it, and released. A few more times he inhaled and then exhaled. The surroundings became clear, the weight crushing his chest lifted with each breath.

“There you go,” Vash encouraged out loud this time. 

A water bottle appeared in front of Knives’ face, so he took it and drank the clear, life-saving fluid from it. His heart slowed down as he breathed in more air and drank more water. He handed the bottle back to Vash. 

“What happened?” Knives asked. 

“An anxiety attack,” Vash said. “Jamilla has them sometimes, and I learned this kind of breathing helps to get through one.”

Interesting. It would be good to know how to talk to Jamilla, because Knives wanted to know how to talk to people eventually. Knives made a note to discuss panic attacks with his new roommate at some point. In the meantime, maybe they should avoid intense conversations while outside among all these people. They wasted time, and they needed to get to the news station before Jamilla left. 

“Let’s get moving,” Knives impatiently moved along. 

There was a pause, and then Vash said, “You don’t need to suffer alone. You never needed to deal with your demons alone.”

“Look, let’s not talk about this right now,” Knives snapped.

Vash nodded. He motioned for his brother to continue walking with him to the news station. 

After walking in contemplative silence for another 10 minutes, the two arrived at NMLB station. It was one of the taller buildings in the town made of brick and decked out with high-end satellites on top of the building. It was sort of impressive, Knives observed. Humans could do really well for themselves. Knives remembered Conrad’s genius, but the memory of how he had ended the brilliant scientist’s life made him whither a bit inside. 

Yet, he pushed the thoughts aside in order to telepathically eavesdrop on Jamilla.

The two brothers stood outside the building, tuned their minds in on the humans inside so they could find Jamilla. It was a busy newsroom with chatter everywhere and people yelling about deadlines. Phones rang off the hook, and reporters scrambled with their equipment to get to breaking news on Gunsmoke. Suddenly, they heard her voice. 

“And they didn’t say specifically what they were going to do to Tessla?” she asked over the phone. 

It was one speaker phone, so the response on the other end was clear to Knives. 

“Look lady, I’m just a plant engineer. I went by protocol for such incidences,” the engineer responded in an irritated voice.  
Jamilla promptly followed up. 

“But what is the protocol for a newborn plant?” 

“Just that we have to hand it over to the authorities,” the engineer said. 

“Is the mother plant still alive?” she asked. 

The engineer was silent for a moment before speaking up in a hurried tone.

“No. Look, she died, but I gotta go. I can’t talk to you anymore.”

“W-wait a minute! Do you have any names of the people who took the child?” Jamilla asked before he could hang up.

“I … I’m not in a position to say,” his voice sounded fearful suddenly. “I g-gotta go.”

“Wait-” Click. 

The other end died out. 

Both Knives and Vash tuned back into their surroundings to debrief on what they heard. 

“Well, that was ominous towards the end,” Knives murmured. 

His brother nodded. “Sounded like the engineer had a gun to his head on the other end. I wonder what had him spooked.” 

Contemplative silence dominated the air between them for a few minutes until someone slammed into Knives as they came out the door of the building. The irate plant looked down at the mess of auburn hair smashed against his stomach. Janilla didn’t knock him over, so they were both awkwardly standing with her face in Knives’ chest. 

“Ho, boy, ‘Milla. Sounds like you got some digging to do!” Vash greeted her as she came out.

Jamilla’s expression changed from confused to mortified as she flailed her hands and uttered awkward apologies and “please don’t kill me” many times. The reported readjusted her posture so that she was standing more of an appropriate distance from the two brothers; her hands were at her sides with one holding her bag of stuff. Her eyes flitted nervously from Vash to Knives.

“You’re both stalking me to work now?” she asked irritatedly. 

“We wanted more intel on the whereabouts of Tessla,” Knives curtly responded. “Sounds like the engineer might be hiding something, and he’s probably at the end of someone’s gun.”

Jamilla pursed her lips together, narrowing her eyes at Knives. She figured he’d be curious about this incident, but how did he even know when she didn’t tell brief him on the information in the press release?

“I saw the images from your frantic little mind,” he explained nonchalantly. “You shouldn’t broadcast so loudly if you don’t want me reading your thoughts.”

“I see,” Jamilla responded, and then she looked at Vash for his explanation for stalking her.

The more childish of the brothers rubbed the back of his head and looked down like he had been caught with his hand in a box of donuts that weren’t meant for him.

“Well, you see … I’m kind of worried about this newborn plant, too.” 

“Hm,” Jamilla nodded her head, arms crossed over her chest. “Then you wouldn’t have any problems coming with me to the Arc Ruins then, would you?” 

The brother’s looked at each other, Vash’s face more expressive of concern than Knives’ features. 

“I have no problem with this plan,” Knives spoke up. 

Vash sighed in defeat. He was worried about the dangers, especially if the engineers were being held hostage. What if Knives lost control of his temper and destroyed all the people in there? Something inside his mind told Vash that he couldn’t talk his brother out of going to the Arc, so he had to go there to keep him in check. Didn’t Rem tell him to take care of Knives so many years ago?

“I guess we could go,” Vash finally agreed. 

Jamilla nodded her head. “Then, it’s settled. We’ll leave tomorrow morning.” 

The three of them raised their eyebrows when they heard two women yelling for them to wait. They looked to the door, which swung open to reveal a tall brunette and short, black-haired women catching their breath and equipped with their news cameras. Meryl pointed at the three gathered at the front door. 

“Don’t think you can go on a secret mission without letting us know!” Meryl pointed accusingly at Jamilla. “We got the press release, as well, and we’d like to assist in any way possible with this story.”

“Oh, sorry about that,” Jamilla apologized. “It wasn’t my intention to keep you out of the loop, but everything happened so quickly from the moment I read the email this morning.”

Meryl and Milly grinned widely, looking pleased that they would be able to help on the mission. The five roommates walked home from the news station, gabbing about their plans. Vash made the occasional doofy, Vash-like remark and got hit over the head by Meryl. Knives was relieved the gang wanted to go ahead with the mission, because he was worried that he would have faced more resistance from his brother.  
He was snapped out of his thoughts by Jamilla asking for his attention. 

“Knives,” she said. “Either today or tomorrow, I need to know some things about you and the first Tessal. Please just tell me everything you remember and know about her when you were young.”

He tensed up at the question, angered that the reporter would ask him about something so sacred to his life and heart. 

“Why should I tell you?” Knives asked. 

“Because it would help me have more of a context on my report about independent plants,” she answered. “I need to know your story. I know Vash’s. He’s opened up, but clearly, your story isn’t the same as his.” 

Well, this was different. He wasn’t used to people just asking about his life, and he didn’t know how to feel about it. Knives knew Jamilla’s job was to get information and make it interesting to the public. Why shouldn’t they know what Tessla’s tragedy did to him?

“All right,” Knives finally agreed. “I’ll give you the story on the road tomorrow.”  
Jamilla smiled a small smile at him. “Thank you for agreeing to share your pain with me. I know it wasn’t easy what you and Vash went through.”

The plant remained silent, but he felt Vash looking at him. When he turned to his left to see his brother giving him side-eye with his mouth upturned to a small grin, Knives grew annoyed. 

‘Don’t get all cocky, brother,” Knives telepathically shared with Vash. ‘I’m doing this out of necessity and not out of any fondness for the woman.’

Vash didn’t respond, but what Knives felt was the mental equivalent of a chuckle from his brother.


	5. Jamilla Sees Vash Pooping, Knives Makes Nice (Sort Of)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamilla packs for her trip, but she cuts herself on broken glass. Vash forgets to lock the bathroom door and Knives brings the reporter some bandaids. What becomes of this encounter?

The reporter’s stomach leaped as though she swallowed a bunch of frogs as she packed her bags for the planned trip. It would be her first time to see the ruins, and she was excited to learn more about plants such as Vash, Knives, and the mysterious Tesla. As she glanced at the stony-faced brother earlier that evening, he still had the same sad, mysterious expression on his face as the day he arrived. Was he born with that look? There was a charm to it, she had to admit. Knowing that Knives had sought to destroy humanity up until recently hadn’t deterred her interest in him.

Was that bad? She wondered if her fascination made her twisted in some way.

The reporter observed that he was high strung and easily upset by small talk, among many other things. What’s more, he seemed to possess a keen intelligence. How could she access it? Vash was good company, and he had a strong emotional intelligence, which meant the plant was attuned to cues in his environment that let him know how people around him were feeling.  
Did his brother have that same empathy? The reporter’s mind was burning with questions, as it always did, when she became fixated on something. 

The voices of her housemates carried through the walls of the house. Jamilla heard Meryl and Milly discussing how they would cover the story for a television angle. Vash spoke cheerfully to Knives, who murmured single-word responses or nothing at all.  
A bump and crash spooked Jamilla from her obsessive thoughts. Her head darted left and right until something shiny glinted in the bedroom light on the floor. While she was packing her shirtsleeve caught on a cheap glass vase that came with the bedroom when she moved in.

“Ah!” The woman jumped as she stepped on a shard in her stocking feet. “Dammit!” 

Hopping around the shards, Jamilla went to the bathroom to grab a bandaid for her cut foot and a broom to sweep up the mess. She winced as she stepped down on her foot. 

“There must be glass stuck in me,” she hissed at the sting.  
Limping her way down the hall, she came to the bathroom door and opened it. Before she could react, a shrill male’s scream came from the toilet. 

“Haven’t you heard of knocking?” Vash whined.

Staring at her in shock with his pants down, Vash’s face was beat red. Jamilla stared with a mortified expression, as well.

“Vash!” She yelled. “I’m sorry!” 

She slammed the door and ran as fast as she could with a cut foot to the broom closet. 

“Let’s just focus on that broom for now,” she murmured to herself.

While she was rummaging through the closet, a tall shadow enveloped her. Freezing in place seemed to be the best choice. 

“Uh, Vash, I’m really sorry,” Jamilla started. “But you should lock the bathroom door in a house full of other people.” 

An awkward silence permeated the air between the two people. 

“What are you talking about?” Knives’ voice inquired. 

Jamilla turned around quickly with a red face and looked at the black-haired plant. His eyebrow quirked a bit as he stared at her. 

“Oh, I’m sorry!” She started. “That was nothing. Nevermind! Forget that I said I saw your brother’s naked butt pooping on the toilet!”

She stared into Knives’ face and could’ve sworn his lips twitched slightly up at the corners.

He continued staring at her with a flat expression.

“You don’t care! Of course you don’t,” Jamilla said waving her hands. “I’m just going back to my room now with this broom.”

Painfully side stepping on her cut foot to get out of Knives’ way, the nervous woman limp/jogged back to her room. Then she heard Meryl’s voice screaming. 

“What was that? What did Vash do?” the short, dark-haired woman yelled.

The commotion of voices faded when Jamilla made it back to her room with her heart beating in her ears. 

\----Knives’ POV----

Knives hurried up the stairs when he heard Vash scream stupidly. Surely his brother wasn’t in actual trouble, but who knew? He realized there was no urgency when he saw the reporter woman rummaging in the closet. He decided to stop her and ask what happened.  
Before Knives could utter a word, Jamilla froze in her place. Had he frightened her? When she started babbling about seeing Vash on the toilet he was really confused. When she turned around to look at him, the plant had some difficulty containing a smirk. 

From what he gathered in Jamilla’s mind, she went to the bathroom, but Vash forgot to lock the door. Images of his brother with his pants around his ankles, sitting on the toilet with a magazine surfaced from her high-strung brain. A spasm of laughter almost left his belly.  
The scared roommate just looked at him, face red, and then side stepped on her left foot. He observed her limp and a winse on her face.  
Peering down at her white sock, Knives observed a small amount of blood soaking through the bottom. 

‘Careless, clumsy human,’ he thought. 

How does someone like that survive on this planet? He watched Jamilla limp off in a pathetic jog to her room. Following her departure, Meryl came up asking what happened. 

“Vash screamed, right?” the small woman asked Knives. “What’s he doing in the bathroom?” 

“What do you think?” Knives muttered, looking away with a look of disgust on his face.

He couldn’t get image from Jamilla’s brain out of his mind. Why did nervous humans have to project their thoughts so loudly? 

“You know what? I don’t to know,” Meryl held her hands up and walked away down the stairs.

However, Knives caught the human’s face blushing just before she turned away from him.

Shaking his head, Knives turned to go to his room, but he then he had an idea. Didn’t he want to start helping humans? Jamilla was clearly hurt on her foot. Why not bring her a bandaid and peroxide? Turning around on his heel, Knives walked to the bathroom where Vash was still obviously taking care of his business. Without even knocking, he walked in, drawing another scream from his brother.

“Hey!” He whined at the other plant. “Why can’t I take a dump in peace?”

Without even looking at Vash, Knives rummaged through the medicine cabinet for bandaids and peroxide. He grabbed the brown bottle, removed it from the cabinet, and then saw some tweezers. Those might be a good idea, since Jamilla might have glass in her foot. 

Meanwhile, the spikey-haired brother continued to whine. 

“Get out! What are you doing with all that stuff, anyway?”

With his hands full, Knives didn’t even look at his brother as he left the bathroom. But he responded to his question.

“Jamilla stepped on some glass,” he answered casually. “I thought I’d be a good roommate and help her.”

Leaving his brother half naked and in disbelief on the toilet, Knives walked out and didn’t close the door.

“Hey! Could you at least close the door?” Vash yelled after him.

Ignoring the shouting, he walked to Jamilla’s room. When he came to her room, he wasn’t sure how to start talking to her. Should he just leave the first aid stuff with her? As Knives was deliberating on how to proceed, he was also standing in her doorway staring at her sweeping up the glass.

Jamilla turned around to empty the dust pan into the garbage. She jumped with a start when she saw Knives standing there, and in her state of nervousness dropped the glass pieces all over the floor again. 

 

\----Jamilla’s POV----

Knives stood right in her doorway with that menacing posture and enigmatic look on his face. The only difference was he came bearing bandaids and antiseptic. He made her drop the glass all over the floor. What was he doing there? 

“Haven’t you heard of knocking?” Jamilla quipped. 

Knives smirked.

“I believe Vash asked you the same thing,” he retorted. “How rude of you. Well, I hope you enjoyed the view.”

Now Jamilla was turning completely red from head to neck. 

“Ah, so you heard the commotion,” she said. 

She looked at the shards of glass and sighed in frustration, but she bent down to sweep them back into the pan once more. Once they were neatly gathered within, Jamilla emptied it into the garbage.

The reporter stood up, anxiously grasping the broom tightly until her fingers felt numb. 

“You brought me gifts.” she gestured to the items in Knives’ hands.

“Here,” he deadpanned. “I believe you tried to acquire these when Vash was on the toilet. Figured you still needed some bandaids.”

Stunned, Jamilla’s grip loosened on the broom and dustpan until she dropped them. 

“How did you-?” she started to ask, but then she remembered hearing how plants can read minds. “It’s amazing that you can read minds.”

Knives pursed his lips. 

“I’ll just leave these here,” he said flatly.

He moved to her desk to relieve his hands of the peroxide, bandaids, and tweezers. Jamilla watched him. She was also standing by her desk, so she was able to get a better look at him. He was so tall, the reporter had to look up. She figured if they were standing side-by-side her head would come to just the middle of his arm. 

As her eyes trailed up his body, they landed on his ice-blue eyes which were staring right back at her and narrowed. Quickly looking back down at the items on her desk, she tried thinking of something to say.

“Thanks,” she finally blurted out. “That was nice of you.”

Shit. Could she sound anymore stupid? ‘That was nice of you.’ How corny.

Then she had an idea. Stepping closer to Knives, the curious woman eagerly peered up at his face. 

“What am I thinking now?” she grinned, biting the bottom of her lip.

Conjuring the image of Vash on the toilet, Jamilla hoped this would get a laugh from the bellicose plant.

Knives glared at her. 

“Don’t insult me,” he snapped. “It’s not a fucking parlor trick. Are we some sideshow attraction to you?” 

Jamilla frowned at that. Knives turned to leave and then stopped in her doorway, turned is head to the side to look partly at the reporter. 

“I hope you’re not that clumsy in the Arc ruins,” Knives shot at her. “You’ll get more than just glass in your foot.”

He left Jamilla feeling cut open in more ways than one after that. First her foot, now her soul. His voice had a razor edge to it, as sharp as his name. ‘Clumsy?’ she thought. That hurt, but then the sting of the gash on her foot brought Jamilla back to reality. 

‘Glass isn’t the only thing that wants to hurt me tonight,’ she thought as her eyes grew hot and wet.

‘Okay. You got this. You’re not about to cry,’ she thought to herself. 

As the reporter cleaned the cut on her foot and finished packing, she fought back tears. It wasn’t until she fell into bed that she gave into her feelings. Thinking back to Knives bringing her bandaids, she wondered how could a person do a nice thing for you while also being so cruel? It wasn’t his words that hurt her. She shouldn’t have said those things to him, but there was that sharp edge that cut through her. People directed that tone towards her so many times in her life as a result of her anxiety.

“What an asshole,” Jamilla whispered in her tearful, shaky voice. 

Before she knew it, she cried herself to sleep.


	6. The Stranger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang encounters a dangerous stranger on their way to the Arc ruins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the paragraph spacing. It doesn't seem to be saving the paragraph spaces I make between the paragraphs, so it's all squashed together.

\-----Jamilla’s POV-----  
Aside from a minor issue with fitting five people,their luggage, and TV news equipment in a four-person vehicle, the group was still able to get an early start to their journey. Jamilla sat squeezed between the brothers, Knives’ eyes blinked open and closed in his efforts to not doze off. Vash used his arm as a pillow against the window. Meryl drove with her coffee in a travel mug resting in the cup holder by her seat. Millie yawned in the passenger seat while looking at the map of the territory ahead of them.  
With her arms tight against her side, the reporter tried not to feel claustrophobic and panic in the car. To stave off anxiety, she drew her attention to other things such as the road straight ahead, how many other travellers they saw in the desert (not many), and the sounds around her.  
Staring straight ahead helped her prevent motion sickness, but at the same time she wanted to turn to Knives to get a better look at him. Every now and then Jamilla would peek over to the left see if he slept or not. Sometimes his eyes were closed, but when they opened and peered at her from the side, she pretended to be looking past him at the landscape and then quickly looked forward.  
What was he thinking about? What was his story? Obviously, he grew up with Vash, but what was his perspective of those same childhood events?  
Vash stirred next to her on the right. She looked at him from the side. His gaze was set ahead in a thoughtful manner as he so often appeared when there was a quiet moment.  
“It’s kind of quiet,” Jamilla said. “Why don’t you regale us with a story, Vash, to prevent Meryl from falling asleep at the wheel?”  
The short black-haired woman tensed in irritation.  
“I’ve never fallen asleep at the wheel!” She shot back.  
Jamilla shrugged. “It happens to the best of us,” she said. “And I also need to be distracted from seeing Vash on the toilet last night.”  
Meryl and Millie both laughed at that, and a spirt of coffee sprayed Millie in the face. Jamilla looked at Knives and saw him wide awake all of a sudden. As much as he tried to hide it, his surprise was showing. His spikey-headed counterpart just stared at her with a comically angry expression on his face.  
“Why do you have to be so mean?” He asked her.  
She playfully waved him off.  
“I’d like to know,” she began, “Where you two grew up. Show me the naked baby photos.”  
Vash peered over at Knives this time, the quieter of the brothers still facing ahead but his gaze sliding ever so slightly to glare at Vash and then Jamilla.  
“Hm, okay,” Vash said. “I have a story for you. It’s the story of two boys who grew up on a ship full of humans destined for another world as they fled the destruction of Earth.”  
“Sounds like a sci-fi novel,” Jamilla replied.  
Yet, she still knew that Project S.E.E.D.S was very much a reality, and very little fiction existed around it. Vash told her bits and pieces about the expedition and its purpose, but he never gave her a full picture of that life. Casually,Jamilla slipped her hand into her pocket and flipped the switch to her tape recorder. She wasn’t going to miss a word.  
Vash dramatically cleared his throat. He stopped and opened his mouth as though he would begin speaking, but he didn’t speak. Again, he cleared his throat. Then he repeated this process once more.  
Knives rubbed his forehead and sighed.  
Meryl ground her teeth. “Jesus Christ! Get on with it!”  
Vash looked hurt. “You interrupt me,” He said. “How dare?”  
When no one responded, and Meryl glared at him through the rearview mirror, he nervously laughed.  
“Okay, okay,” he said. “Once upon a time, two baby boys were born to a female plant on the Project S.E.E.D.S ship. One baby in particular was the cutest of the two, and therefore the favorite of the adoptive human mother, Rem.”  
An audible collective groan came from everyone in the car. Jamilla felt Knives shift uncomfortably in his seat next to her. Interesting how his discomfort increased when his brother mentioned Rem. The reporter was also intrigued in the manner in which Knives’right leg brushed against hers, and the vibration of his groan didn’t feel terrible, either.  
Why did they have to be so close together?  
Vash continued with a shakiness in his voice, “Rem raised us as her own, named us, and watched as we grew so quickly before her eyes.”  
Everyone in the car listened raptly to the spikey-haired goof tell this serious story. Jamilla felt the muscles of Knives’ arm grow tense against her arm as he clenched and unclenched his fist.  
“We were … “ He paused to gaze at his brother, “... full of enthusiasm for life, love for Rem, and excitement for the time that we would meet the human race.”  
Knives’ nostrils flared, lips narrowed, and his head suddenly turned to return his brother’s stare.  
“Knives was always so excited, talking about his hopes for the future of humanity and the plants” he continued. “He was a dreamer, and probably still is.”  
Vash was smiling softly at his glaring twin. Jamilla looked up at them both, turning her head nervously from one to the other.  
When Vash seemed quiet for too long, Jamilla spoke, “I would understand if you don’t want to finish the story.”  
Vash turned to look at her and smiled kindly, “It’s just that this is the first time I’ve told this story to anyone. Even Meryl.”  
“Vash, there’s no need to go on with the story if it’s too upsetting,” Meryl said.  
The raven-haired woman made eye contact with him through the rearview mirror.  
Vash shook his head. “No, I’ll finish. It’s such a good story, and it’s a shame it never gets told often enough!” He laughed. “It’s full of daring, adventure, love and heartbreak, and - “  
As he was about to continue, Knives’ shot out his arm and grabbed Vash’s shoulder. The movement jarred Jamilla. She gasped as the man’s arm shot out from her left.  
“Don’t finish the story,” Knives pleaded with a hint of pain in his voice.  
Jamilla caught the shakiness in his words, and she felt the tension in his arm that splayed across her chest to reach Vash’s shoulder.  
‘This is intense,’ the reporter thought. ‘Should I stop the recording?’  
Her finger hovered over the recorder’s power button in her pocket.  
‘Nah. Let’s see where this goes.’  
For a moment, the younger twin’s face contorted in anger, but just as quickly softened.  
“Is my story telling ability that bad?” Vash asked with a smile meeting his eyes.  
The brothers intensely stared at each other with some sort of internal struggle that only they could understand. As much as she wanted to know the ending, Jamilla really didn’t want to be stuck between these two and this intense war. But she had to admit that the pressure of his arm on her chest wasn’t unpleasant. His strength made her feel almost safe if not for the fact that he was burning with anger, and she could feel the energy through his clothing. The leather from his jacket smelled good, but there was a pleasant earthiness to the exposed skin of his wrist under her nose.  
Closing her eyes, Jamilla concentrated on her energy mingling with his through the sleeve. She took deep breaths to see if her aura would touch his just a little. Just a little closer, and their energies would touch just the slightest bit …  
Then Knives abruptly withdrew his limb from her chest. Jamilla snapped from her meditation, looked up at him, and saw his eyes burning into her.  
The woman mentally smacked herself and spoke up to melt the tension.  
“It’s OK,” Jamilla said. “Don’t finish the story if it’s too emotional! Let’s all just … I dunno. Sit in contemplative silence!”  
Phew. That was getting risky.  
Not to mention the scent of Knives’ clothing lingered in the air under her nose after removing his arm. It made her whoozy with excitement. It had been two years since Jamila had been with a lover, and her body was feeling the effects of the neglect. As the five companions cruised along in silence, Jamilla’s mind created scenarios of herself and Knives in various tangled positions. What would it feel like to have his legs engulfing hers in this very car? Or on a bed? How would his strong hands feel roaming her arms, legs, and ass?  
Unfortunately, she was painfully pulled from her erotic thoughts by the car slowing down and Meryl releasing a sharp “Dammit!”  
“What’s wrong?” Vash and Millie asked at once  
“The car is dying,” Meryl responded. “Why is this happening? I just had this thing serviced!”  
As the vehicle came to a complete stop, Millie rummaged under her seat for the toolbox. Vash, Knives, and Jamilla just sat in silence. The reported wished the two would get out of the car, so she could stretch her legs and get the feeling back in her butt.  
Maybe Vash read her mind because he soon opened his door and stepped out of the car. Jamilla followed him out the same way while Knives opened the door on his side. He stretched his arms and then crossed them as he looked off into the distance.  
\-------Knives’ POV------  
Great. The car just had to break down, because Meryl took it to some cheap mechanics who did a shit job on it. But he was glad for the opportunity to get out of the car. He realized he may have made Jamilla uncomfortable, and he didn’t want Vash finishing his stupid story.  
For some weird reason, Knives didn’t want Jamilla to know that he was the one who caused Project S.E.E.D.S to crash. He didn’t know why he cared so much what she thought. And then he made that stupid mistake of grabbing his brother and catching the woman between their conflict.  
Again, the rashness of his behavior lead him to do something stupid. This must be the story of his life. Surely he made the woman uncomfortable because he felt the same way. When Knives removed his arm, he noticed the warmth that the human left on his sleeve. Sitting next to her in the car for two hours meant that both their legs were constantly touching. What worried him was that he didn’t find the sensation of physical contact unpleasant.  
When Knives rubbed his sleeve against his nose to relieve an itch, he caught traces of a scent that wasn’t his. Inhaling it a bit more slowly, Knives memorized it as Jamilla’s smell. It was clean, like laundry and soap.  
Thinking back to the car ride, Knives remembered a feeling projecting from Jamilla after he removed his arm. He remembered sensing something similar in humans when he passed through cities. Humans that were courting or mating felt arousal before sexual intercouse.  
What was he supposed to make of that? On the one hand, Knives enjoyed her company to an extent. He wanted to get to know her, but he also didn’t know how to start speaking with strangers on a friendly level.  
This just wouldn’t do. How sick in the head was this woman to like him, of all people? What was that about? There had to be some other explanation. She might’ve been feeling that way about his brother or maybe Meryl or Millie. It could’ve been anyone. He didn’t want to read her thoughts to find out the answer. He just didn’t.  
Also, what was she trying to do to him? Something about her energy was weird, and he couldn’t quite figure it out. What he did know what the woman was deliberately manipulating her aura to reach out to his. How she was able to do this, he didn’t know, but he couldn’t allow it.  
‘Let it be what it would be and pretend it’s not happening,’ he thought.  
But now the car broke down, and Knives was awkwardly standing by himself on the other side of the vehicle with his arms crossed. His shoulders were tense. He didn’t want to look at Vash or any other of his travelling companions.  
Leaning against the car door, he closed his eyes and focused his attention on the sounds in his surroundings. Meryl and Millie popped the hood of the car up, the sound of smoke hissing from it. Both women coughed. Vash’s feet crunched the ground underneath as he walked over to the two reporters who were peering at the engine. Another set of footsteps came around the back of the jeep to his left. They approached closer and closer until they were a few feet from him.  
His telepathy told him Jamilla, the short auburn-haired reporter, stood on his left. Without opening his eyes, Knives tried to get a reading on her life force, her presence. She was nervous. Not just because of this situation, but in general. Her energy rippled with anxiety. Where did that jitteriness come from?  
He probed her energy a bit. As he dug deeper, the plant felt a power vibrating within her.  
‘Well, isn’t that interesting,’ he thought. ‘Our little reporter is hiding something from everyone.’  
Opening his eyes, Knives looked to the woman at his left. She was looking out into the distance playing with her hands. A nervous gesture, he knew from observing humans for so long. Her brown jacket was tattered on the sleeves, her red tunic frayed at the edges, like her nerves. She wore thick, leather leggings with black travelling boots up to her knees. Her curly auburn hair was parted over to the left of her face, a braid ran down her right side with the under part of her head shaved a bit.  
Knives found himself enjoying the way her curls went in different directions and frizzed out. He wanted to touch her braid.  
‘This won’t do, at all,’ he scolded himself. He looked back to her face to see that she was staring at him wide-eyed.  
“Didn’t you hear me?” Jamilla said. “There’s someone approaching from a distance. Look.”  
“What?” He asked.  
“Shit,” he swore.  
Knives kicked himself for being so distracted. He turned his attention to where Jamilla pointed. A vehicle approached less than a mile away. The reporter signaled to Vash, Meryl, and Millie to look in that direction.  
Millie grabbed her big gun from the car, and Meryl had her hand on her deringers. Jamilla did something weird with her hands, her fingers touching together in an odd getsure. And he could’ve sworn they glowed a bit. When the plant looked around, no one else seemed to notice or care about the woman’s hands. Everyone just stood ready and watched the mysterious vehicle approach from the distance.  
\----Jamilla’s POV----  
She could hear the hum of the engine and see that the vehicle was matte black with completely black windows, as well. It closed in on the group, skidding to a stop and kicking up a cloud of sand just enough to dust their faces.  
Turning to Vash, she said that he wasn’t openly armed, but he probably had some kind of trick up his sleeve. Her coworkers ahead of her boldly wielded their weapons. Knives carried nothing. When she looked at him, she saw the plant quickly look at her hands and then look away.  
Shit. Had he noticed her power? She was so careful to keep it away from people for as long as she could. In dire circumstances, Jamilla needed to call upon it for protection.  
A door opening and closing snapped her attention back to the present. Black heeled boots, all polished and shiny stepped from the shadows of the vehicle. The feet were followed by a man of about five-feet-five in a black and red suit. His hair was black and fell down to his shoulders, and his round black sunglasses hid his eyes from view. His top hat surprised everyone and looked unexpected in this heat, but Gunsmoke has no shortage of eccentrically-dressed people who are up to no good. From what Jamilla could gather from his aura, this man was certainly looking for trouble.  
Meryl spoke up first.  
“Hey, there,” she said. “We broke down out here. You wouldn’t happen to have jump cables on you, would you?”  
A stiff nod from the stranger and a “I sure do,” was her response.  
“What’ll you give me in return?”  
Meryl laughed nervously, “Well, we’re not keeping the jump cables. I don’t know what you could need from simple travellers such as us.”  
A dark look flashed in the man’s eyes as he scanned the group and laid eyes on the twins. He looked at them, and then shifted his attention to Jamilla when her fingers flickered slightly.  
She froze under his gaze but took a deep breath to control her energy and power.  
“Maybe you can hand over those two outlaws and the witch,” the man demanded.  
Meryl and Millie looked perplexed. “A witch?” They asked in unison when they exchanged looks and turned to Knives, Vash, and Jamilla.  
Jamilla laughed, hoping it sounded innocent rather than anxious.  
“Look, if you don’t want to lend us any help, that’s fine,” Jamilla said. “But don’t fuck around like this. It’s really annoying, and we’re wasting time talking with you.”  
Meryl agreed, “Yeah. Sir, just leave us be, and stop talking to us about outlaws and witches. We have to be somewhere.”  
His eyes widened. “You’re not going anywhere while harboring those criminals.”  
Tilting her head innocently, Jamilla asked, “Why do you keep calling me that? I’m a simple journalist traveling with friends trying to get somewhere.”  
‘Also, I’m not a witch, you ignorant hillbilly. My power is beyond what your brain can grasp. I can’t even understand it all.’  
Before things got worse, Vash stepped in with his hands up in surrender. He seemed to be making an offering of himself to the guy.  
“Let’s all calm down,” he said. “Sir, please allow us to use your jump cables, and we will gladly give you some of our donuts!”  
Millie gasped.  
“No, Mr. Vash! Not your donuts!”  
Everyone stiffened when she used his name. The bounty hunter drew a gun and aimed it at Vash’s head.  
“I knew it! You’re Vash the Stampede! That must be Millions Knives over there,” he gestured with his gun. “Why don’t you allow me to kill you both, take in the witch, and then I’ll let you two ladies be on your way?”  
Vash’s expression grew fiercely serious, and Jamilla could see the silent fury in his eyes. While she wasn’t touching Knives, she could feel the heat of his anger and fear oozing from his pores. Something had to be done to defuse this situation quickly.  
If she could just reach out to some force of nature for help … She closed her eyes and focused her attention outwards, underground, beneath the dense mounds of sand. Her powers reached down into the depths of the ground like a hand, until she felt the vibration with her aura’s fingers.  
Suddenly the ground shook, everyone was startled. The bounty hunter took his attention from his targets for just a second before he was swallowed up by a giant mouth shooting up from the ground.  
“Worrrm! Everyone out of the way!” Vash screamed, grabbing Meryl.  
The rest of the gang jumped out of the way as the sandworm swallowed the bounty hunter and dove back underground. Instead of coming back up for the rest of them, it went in the opposite direction, diving in and out of the sand. It’s body resembled waves from the vast oceans of far-away Earth.  
Jamilla spat sand out of her mouth. She was on her back dazed.  
‘What beauties those sandworms are,’ she mused to herself.  
She was pulled from her deep thoughts when a body moved under her. Long, slender fingers wrapped around her elbows. Jamilla turned around and looked into the blue depths of Knives’ eyes. Still being sensitive and on edge from using her power, she felt a surge of energy from the plant’s fingers.  
She froze staring into his eyes, feeling his fathomless sorrow, fear, anger, and pain. Was there ever a time when he didn’t know those things? The reporter wanted to ask him, but the “witch” wanted to help him heal.  
She placed her smaller hands on his forearms, and Knives also seemed too transfixed in her gaze to move. It felt as though energy pulled their faces and bodies closer until her chest was flush against his. Jamilla eyed his mouth which was opened just a little. What would it feel like against her lips? Or hot against the flesh anywhere else on her body?  
“We have to stop meeting like this,” she said huskily against his ear.  
Suddenly, Knives was snapped out of the trance. All at once the scene just fell apart around them. Vash came running over, carrying a screaming Meryl. Milly smacked Vash on the head so he would drop the smaller woman.  
Jamilla sighed, looking down at her lap. Knives growled in agitation and slid out from underneath the auburn-haired woman.  
What was she thinking? How did that even almost happen? Surely that was the last thing on either of their minds moments before. The reporter would have to investigate this reaction her power had with his energy.  
Standing up, Jamilla decided to help the gang get the car jump-started. Too bad for that bounty hunter. He could’ve left alive, but he had to prod too far into their business. No, into her business. She looked over at her friends digging around in the bounty hunter’s car and finding the jump cables. She smiled at their antics, but she also saw the difficulty in Vash and Knives’ faces. It was a hardship she understood. She knew what it was like to be hunted down for what she was, and this reporter job helped her cover up her true self, but how long could she hide it from the world?  
\----Knives’ POV---  
He jumped in to help with the car, because he needed a distraction from that damned woman. Whether she meant to or not, she kept finding ways to be on his mind all the time. He needed time away from her to think. He couldn’t stop thinking about the warm sensation he felt when his hands met her arms, and he thought his blades were going to come out of his arm when he touched Jamilla. It felt good, and he wanted it to happen again.  
What power does she have? Why did the bounty hunter call her a “witch”? Knives had heard talk of some people on the planet Gunsmoke who had powers that they used to commune with nature, perform rituals, and manipulate energy. It didn’t surprise him that many of the more ignorant townsfolk would call these individuals “witches”.  
Great, so now he had this baby plant to worry about, as well as this woman with strange powers. He doubted Vash, Meryl, Milly knew about it. Well, maybe Vash had some idea, but he was being his clueless self.  
Knives rubbed his head. There was so much to think about, and his thoughts never shut up. What was going on? Ever since he came back to life, more questions came up than he had answers for, and he still couldn’t figure out why he came back to life.  
“This fucking car better start, or I’m going to make sure I die for good this time,” he said under his breath.  
A familiar hand patted his shoulder. Knives turned around to see his brother smiling at him.  
“Don’t do that! We haven’t finished catching up yet!” Vash laughed.  
“Tch,” was all the plant responded.  
“What happened with Jamilla back there?” Vash continued. “Knowing you, I bet you’re aching for answers.”  
‘Aching,’ the grouchier twin thought. ‘Such apt wording.’  
Vash chuckled. “Ooo, look! The car is all fixed! We can finally get back to our cozy arrangement.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crew arrives at the Arc ruins and splits up to look around for clues to the new Tessla. Knives and Jamilla chat a bit and encounter mercenaries.

\----Jamilla’s POV----

Another three hours and many miles of sandy wasteland later, the ruined Arc came into view. The smell of burnt bodies and mechanical bits of ship permeated Jamilla’s nostrils and upset stomach so that she had to force back some bile threatening to burst from her guts. Jamilla’s head lolled back against the back of the seat as she squeezed her eyes shut in brutal sun and the nasty wave of motion sickness. Nausea set in three hours ago and worsened over the course of the trip. The reporter tried different methods to settle her stomach, such as putting her head between her legs, focusing her gaze straight ahead, and then sleeping. Her sleep was fitful, the car was hot, and her head kept bumping Vash’s and Knives’ shoulders when she nodded off.

In Meryl’s circling attempts to find a place to park away from the cleanup crews, Jamilla’s guts swirled around with her head. Debree crunched against the tires making everyone kind of wince in fear that they would get a flat. As the car stopped, Jamilla burped and groaned. Her mouth tasted stale from the heat and nausea. Seeing that they had stopped, she was in a hurry to get out. The reporter shoved Vash in her eagerness to exit. 

“Let me out!” the woman snapped at him. 

“Hey-”

“If I don’t get out, I’ll barf all over!”

“Hold on!” He whined. “Give me a sec to get my seatbelt off!”

“You’re too slooow,” She whined back.

Vash fumbled with his seatbelt buckle, because Jamilla’s butt was so close to it. But when he still wouldn’t move fast enough, she tried climbing over him. Struggling ensued as the plant tried to push her off of him. 

“What’re ya doin’?!” He tried pushing her back down in her seat. “Give me a chance to get out first!”

When Jamilla’s leg and Vash wouldn’t stop hitting Knives, the grumpier twin decided he should just get himself out of this crowded mess. He unfastened his seatbelt and left the car. When Jamilla heard Knives moving around. She glanced over to see him standing outside the car with his back to the four of them. 

A sheepish look overtook her face. “Oh…” 

She stepped off of Vash’s lap, stomping his balls by accident on the way out.

“Sorry!” She said when he yelped and whined at her.

Setting foot on land again, Jamilla focused on the stillness of the ground. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply five times. 

“Thanks for letting me out of the car,” She looked at Knives shyly. 

Her nervous gaze fell to the ground when the plant locked eyes with her.

“Whatever,” his eyes shifted away from her.. “I didn’t do it for you. You were getting on my nerves, is all.”

Jamilla couldn’t help but laugh at him. Was that a slight tinge of pink on his cheeks? How precious.

“Tch, what’s so funny?” Knives asked. He looked rather annoyed. 

The reporter didn’t know how to respond, so she just looked down and mumbled, “Oh, it’s nothing.”

The icy plant released an annoyed sigh and stood there awkwardly. Jamilla took in her surroundings a bit more, and she was quite impressed by the ruins. The wreckage of The Arc was huge; the nose itself was monstrous and gave her the chills. She could almost equate it to the images of sinking ships in the ocean she’d seen in records of Earth’s history, except this had crashed in sand instead of water. A gust of wind picked up as she gazed at the ruins against the darkening sky. If it had been dark and storming, she would’ve felt even more eerie in the presence of the wrecked ship. It was horrible and beautiful to behold at the same time. 

Meryl and Millie finished gathering the last of their video equipment from the vehicle. The shorter woman motioned for the group to start moving toward the crashed ship. They couldn’t see an entrance immediately, so Vash turned to his brother for an explanation about where to enter. Knives silently surveyed his ruined creation. He told the group to go left and head toward the door at the end.

Jamilla hated the way the earth smelled of burned metal and flesh, and how palpable the atmosphere was with fear. She felt the fear that the plants knew when Knives used them to his own ends. She caught glimpses of pieces of wings, arms, legs and faces contorted in fear. Jamilla felt this so much more the closer they got to the door. Even as they descended the steps of the entrance, her brain throbbed with the aura of death and terror caused by this one man.

Inside the structure Jamilla observed metal creaking and sparks coming from all around her. It was dark, but certainly not abandoned. People were inside cleaning up remains and salvaging parts. The group of five stopped to decide which way they wanted to go. While Knives remained silent, Vash and Jamilla argued about moving in two different directions while Meryl vouched for another. In the end, the group separated with Vash accompanying the two women on the left path and Knives and Jamilla veering off to the path on the right.

As the reporter wandered with Knives, she pondered what he was thinking about as he revisited this destruction he caused. *You should just ask him. What do you have to lose? The worst he will do is say something nasty,* her inner voice told her.

Well, here goes nothing. Jamilla put on her best reporter mask and went for it.

“Knives, what are your thoughts at the moment?” She asked.

Pin-drop silence followed, as she expected. Glancing over at him, Jamilla studied his icy expression. His eyes focused ahead as though he hadn’t registered her question, but on further inspection one could observe the slightest tension in the skin around the plant’s lids. Perhaps he was irritated? Or maybe he was struggling as to whether to dignify Jamilla’s question with a response. 

She sighed. “Maybe you’d like to talk about your favorite food?”

Knives’ eyes narrowed more, and he shot her a cold look with his piercing, frigid eyes that would freeze a lesser person’s blood in their veins. 

*Ah, there we go,* she thought. 

He stopped walking and looked her dead in the eye, turning his body to give her his full attention. 

“Your thoughts are loud enough as it is,” he began. “But now you insist on asking me these questions like I’m some kind of test subject.”

There was that anger and pain she anticipated. Suddenly, Knives moved in closer to Jamilla, backing the woman further back until she hit a bumpy wall with all kinds of uncomfortable pieces of metal poking out. The plant’s presence was palpable and oh so warm without even touching her. 

Jamilla spoke up, “I d-don’t view you as a ‘test subject’. Quite the opposite! I see you as someone I want to learn from and that maybe the human race can learn to empathize with.” 

Knives tilted his head in curiosity while maintaining that narrow-eyed expression. It was the truth, as far as Jamilla was concerned. Whether he believed it or not was his problem, she figured.

“I sense sincerity in your thoughts,” Knives said. “Maybe you deluded yourself that you’re capable of empathizing with me, but I don’t believe it. You want my trust? Work for it, little human.” 

The proximity of his body and sheer dominance in those words made Jamilla’s breath hitch. She wanted his trust, but he needed to earn her’s, as well.

“You may think this is a one-sided game,” Jamilla responded. “But did it ever occur to you that YOU need to earn MY trust, as well?” She emphasized with a finger jabbing his very close chest. “Humans have done you wrong, and you’ve hurt us. It works both ways.”

This must have struck a chord, because he backed away suddenly like someone hit him hard. Jamilla frowned and looked at her finger wondering if she was physically stronger than she realized. 

Suddenly, Knives grabbed her and threw her out of the way just before a harsh metallic noise clanked across the floor. Jamilla’s heart thumped so hard, she thought she would die. Sitting on her ass on the cold floor, she saw Knives in front of her staring down at what looked like a piece of a large pipe. Where did that come from? What function did that once serve? Snapping out of her thoughts, she thought she ought to thank the plant for his quick thinking.

“Thank you,” Jamilla managed to speak up. “I totally spaced out just looking around. I was overwhelmed by-”

“Idiot,” her partner spoke up. “Don’t get any ideas, OK? I wouldn’t hear the end of it from Vash if something happened to one of his humans.” 

Under any other circumstances, Jamilla would’ve felt hurt by those words, but for some reason, coming from Knives she felt as though he didn’t mean them. It just amused her how he seemed so cranky. How unique and different these twins were from each other. 

“You know, it’s kind of cute what a grump you are,” she dared to say.

Knives stiffened at her response. Man, did he look perturbed. 

\----Knives POV----

They barely made it inside, and this human almost got herself killed. Why did she call him cute? No one had ever said such a thing about him in his life. What was he supposed to respond to that? What really irked him was that he wasn’t even angry. In fact, he felt embarrassment mixed with a bit of flattery.

“W-what did you say?” he stammered. Dammit. The human had him stammering like a nervous boy!

Jamilla got nervous when she realized he might be angry. She looked down, turning red. 

“I just thought,” she began. “I just wanted to see how you would react! Yeah, that’s it. I’ll have to take note of this if I get out alive. Interesting.”

Knives looked away from her quickly, growling as he kicked the broken pipe out of the way. He should’ve just let the hunk of metal hit her in the head. What was she doing to him?

He heard shuffling as Jamilla stood to her feet, but he was lost in thought about ways that he might be able to get rid of her. No, that’s not good. Vash wouldn’t like that, and neither would Knives. Because if he was being honest with himself, the plant would admit that he kind of felt an awkward attraction to the woman. He was at least fascinated by whatever it is that she’s hiding from everyone. That’s all. He just wanted to sate his curiosity about her … talents. Nothing more.

But Knives refused to be honest with himself. He would ignore his small infatuation and it would go away. Jamilla pulled him out of his thoughts with a strange groan. He looked at her, concerned that maybe she hit her head after all. 

She rubbed her head. “My brain’s vibrating” she said. “It’s like a … I don’t know. Some sort of life force pulling at me.” 

Knives raised an eyebrow at her. “A life force?” 

He tuned his telepathic powers into his surroundings, and there was indeed something pulling at his consciousness. Strings of energy wrapped around his brain and gently pulsed and vibrated. These were threads only a plant or a person with extreme mental abilities could feel. 

Knives followed the tendrils of energy without looking to see if Jamilla trailed after him or not. He figured she would investigate it with him, so there was no need for him to waste his breath speaking. Talking just felt like too much energy, and hadn’t he already spent so much of his energy over the years on futile efforts? Why talk to fill the silence? Even deep in his own thoughts, the rope of energy had a strong pull on his mind. 

The short, auburn-haired woman walked alongside him while keeping a comfortable distance. 

“Maybe you can fool Vash, but I’m no idiot,” Knives finally spoke up. 

Startled, Jamilla whipped her head to him, her slight curls whipping into her wide, brown eyes. 

“What’re you asking me?” She responded.

“You think that stunt back there with the sandworms would slip by me?” the plant responded. “Oh, and how about this energy we’re following? Are you aware of what it belongs to?”

Jamilla stared at Knives, her thoughts a mess of how to respond to his interrogation. She was projecting her anxiety so loudly, it hurt his head. 

The journalist’s face softened and turned away from him. Hair fell into her eyes as she seemed to look off into a place only known to her. 

Knives growled lowly. How frustrating to be able to feel her chaotic emotions and not be able to get a specific reading on her thoughts. She was damned good at hiding whatever secret she had. 

Finally, Jamilla opened her mouth to speak, but stopped in her tracks and gasped. Surprised, Knives turned his attention forward to see the reason for her reaction. Stopping in his tracks he was startled to find a semi-circle of armed mercenaries waiting for them. 

_Well, shit._


End file.
